I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. Before opening my statement on this Bill I would like to draw attention to Deputy Lemass in his new role as the busy bee of Fianna Fáil.
Committee On Finance. - Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) (Amendment) Bill, 1956—Second Stage.
We might as well have a quorum while you are doing that.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
I was just referring to Deputy Lemass in his new role of busy bee. No Deputy in this House knows better than he that the process of tying up the loose ends which will exist in the repeal of the Emergency Powers Act is a lengthy one and the Bill to which I propose the House should give a Second Reading now is another of the many statutes which have to be enacted in order to make it possible to terminate the operation of the Supplies and Services Act without causing serious dislocation. I know that when the Deputy wants to assume the role, not only of the busy bee, but of the efficient busy bee, he likes to make out and impress on the public that there is some lack of efficiency or expedition in this matter.
We all know the Fianna Fáil approach to these matters. It is to let the so-and-so's suffer provided Deputy Lemass is blameless. This Government takes the more rational view that it ought to take every conceivable precaution to avoid any unnecessary inconvenience by precipitate action. Our aim is to get the necessary legislation passed through this House so that we will not discover, when the Supplies and Services Act lapses, that some things which require to be done cannot be done because we have not the power to do them. Deputy Lemass's approach is that we should abolish the existing legislation and, whenever some misfortune arises, come into Dáil Éireann pressing for the urgent passage of further legislation.
My experience is that if you come in and ask for the urgent passage of urgent legislation you are confronted with Deputy MacEntee, Deputy Briscoe and Deputy Burke, from Balbriggan, blathering away until you are weary listening to them and nothing happens. We are taking the simple precaution of allowing the legislation under the emergency Supplies and Services Acts to survive until we have all the Bills of this character submitted to Dáil Éireann for its approval. I am going to open a Bill and it deals with a very tiny segment of the total volume of Orders made under the Supplies and Services Act. I think when Deputies hear my statement upon it they will realise that each of the provisions that I seek to preserve in the permanent law is very necessary for the orderly procedure of the dairying industry and that if any of them, by an oversight, were allowed to lapse without a permanent legislative substitute adopted by Dáil Éireann you could do great damage. Now, of course, we in Dáil Éireann might not feel the pinch but the unfortunate farmers down the country might feel it. Is there anything wrong in this Government saying: "Anxious as we are to substitute permanent legislation for the Supplies and Services procedure, we are not so anxious that we are prepared to kick a small uninfluential minority of vulnerable people all over the place in order to soothe the restless conscience of the busy bee?"
Mr. Lemass
The Minister said Deputy Burke blathered. Deputy Burke's speeches are like legal documents compared with that sort of ballyhoo.
Would the Minister come to the Bill now?
I will, particularly if the humming of the busy bees is for a moment suspended.
It has been the aim of both the present and the previous Governments that arrangements should be made for the incorporation in permanent legislation of such controls operated under the Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Acts as are proper for permanent retention. In pursuance of this mutually agreed policy, the Bill now before the House is introduced for the purpose of incorporating into the framework of the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Acts the provisions of seven emergency powers Orders relating to dairy produce or the power to make by Order similar provisions if such are required at any time in the future. There are no new matters of principle in the Bill. These seven Orders in question (five of which are still in operation) relate to the borrowing powers of the Butter Marketing Committee, the payment out of the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Fund of certain allowances on creamery butter and other dairy produce, the distribution of creamery butter in the Dublin or other specified area, the fixing of maximum wholesale prices for creamery butter and for imported butter and the restriction on the use of creamery butter other than for household purposes.
The first of the emergency powers Orders covered by the Bill is the Emergency Powers (No. 283) Order, 1943, which relates to the borrowing powers of the Butter Marketing Committee. The committee is a central marketing organisation operating under rules approved by the Minister for Agriculture under the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) (Amendment) Act, 1941. It is the only such central marketing organisation under the Act and its present functions cover the cold storage of creamery butter for winter use, the supplying of the creamery butter requirements of the Dublin and Bray areas, the import of butter as and when required to meet casual shortages and the export from time to time of surplus creamery butter. So that it may fulfil the functions of arranging for the storage of creamery butter for winter use, the committee borrows the necessary capital from its bankers during the summer months and repays the money during the winter months according as it sells off the butter.
The Act of 1941 provides that the Minister for Agriculture, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, may guarantee the repayment of these borrowings but the Act limits to £500,000 the amount the repayment of which may be so guaranteed. By the year 1943, experience had shown that a sum of £500,000 was not sufficient to enable the committee to finance its purchases of butter for cold storage and so, in those difficult days, recourse was had to Emergency Powers Order to amend the Act by increasing to £2,000,000 the amount of the borrowings the repayment of which could be guaranteed.
In recent years, the position is that due to the increasing value of butter, the committee has found it necessary to obtain temporary bank overdrafts in excess of the guaranteed figure of £2,000,000, the excess being secured by private arrangement between the committee and its bankers but at a higher rate of interest than that applicable to the guaranteed portion of the borrowing. As it is highly desirable that the full amount of the committee's overdraft should be secured at the most favourable rate of interest obtainable, it is proposed in this Bill to increase from £2,000,000 to £4,000,000 the amount of its borrowings the repayment of which can be guaranteed by the State.
The Second Emergency Powers Order involved is the Emergency Powers (No. 270) Order, 1943. The Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Acts enable the Minister for Agriculture to pay out of the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Fund contributions towards any approved scheme for the regulation of the sale of butter or any milk product. When it was decided in 1943 to subsidise the home-market price of creamery butter by means of allowances on production and cold storage of the butter, the Act was amended by Emergency Powers Order to enable such allowances to be paid out of the Fund. The position still is that allowances are paid on production and cold storage of creamery butter and, in addition, allowances are now being paid on sales of such butter. As long as subsidisation of creamery butter is continued, whether on its cold storage, its production or its sale, it is necessary that the power should be retained to enable any moneys available in the Fund from time to time to be utilised for that purpose in reduction of the amount which otherwise would have to be provided by the Exchequer. Accordingly, the Bill proposes to make permanent the relative amendment of the Acts which has been operated by the Emergency Powers Order since 1943.
The third Emergency Powers Order, the provisions of which are incorporated in the Bill, is the butter (Control in Scheduled Area) Order, 1952. During the years in which the domestic consumption of creamery butter was rationed, special arrangements had to be made to provide for the regular supply of the rationed requirements of butter in the Dublin and Bray areas, where, due to the large population and the consequential heavy supplies of butter involved, distribution arrangements could not be effected as easily as in other areas of smaller population. To meet the situation, the supply of butter to the Dublin and Bray areas was, by Emergency Powers Order, canalised through the Butter Marketing Committee. When butter rationing was abolished in July, 1952, the previous Government decided that all the then existing functions of the Butter Marketing Committee, including that relating to the supply of creamery butter in the Dublin and Bray areas, should be continued. I see no reason now for altering this arrangement which has worked so satisfactorily.
Two other Emergency Powers Orders covered in the Bill are those relating to the maximum wholesale prices of creamery butter sold in bulk and in rolls. The particular Orders at present in operation are the Creamery Butter and Butter Boxes Order, 1954, and the Roll Butter Order, 1954, but the general pattern of these Orders, varying only in regard to the level of prices prescribed, has remained unchanged since the early 1940s. The Dairy Produce (Prices Stabilisation) Act, 1935, empowers the Minister for Agriculture to prescribe by Order maximum prices at which any specified class of butter may be sold wholesale but such Orders may relate only to the prices charged by the manufacturer of the butter. In the case of creamery butter, therefore, the Act enables maximum prices to be prescribed only in relation to the sale by a creamery of butter of its own make. It does not cover the price at which creameries may sell butter purchased from other creameries or from the Butter Marketing Committee, nor does it cover the price of creamery butter sold by wholesalers to retailers.
When it first became necessary in 1940 to control the maximum retail price of creamery butter, it was also necessary to control the profit margins of wholesalers and retailers. To do this, recourse had to be had to emergency powers to prescribe by Order maximum prices for all creamery butter sold by wholesale, whether the sale was effected by creameries to wholesalers, by creameries to retailers or by wholesalers to retailers. As the maximum retail price of creamery butter is still controlled, the intermediate prices of the butter between the creamery and the retailer must continue to be fixed. The power to make such detailed prices Orders under the Act is, therefore, being included in the Bill in substitution for the similar powers at present operated by Emergency Powers Orders. The latter Orders also contained provision for the compulsory return of empty timber butter boxes to creameries and the Bill proposes to retain this provision.
Another Emergency Powers Order covered in the Bill is the Imported Butter (Maximum Wholesale Prices) Order, 1954. In regard to this Order, which is not now in operation, emergency powers had to be invoked because the scope of the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Acts was not sufficiently wide to enable maximum prices to be prescribed under those Acts for imported butter sold by wholesale. While I hope that it may not be found necessary in the future to import supplementary supplies of butter, nevertheless it is only prudent that the power to prescribe prices for imported butter should be retained in permanent legislation in case the need for the fixing of such prices should ever again arise.
The remaining Emergency Powers Order which has been incorporated in the Bill is the Emergency Powers (Restriction on Use of Creamery Butter) Order, 1942. This Order was in operation from June, 1942, to November, 1954. It prohibited the buying, selling or use of creamery butter for any purpose other than ordinary household use except under a permit granted by the Minister for Agriculture. It was originally made for the purpose of conserving stocks of creamery butter when butter rationing was introduced, but in later years was availed of for the purpose of recovering from users of creamery butter for manufacturing purposes, the amount of State subsidy involved in the butter so used. The method under which this was operated was that on payment of a prescribed fee by the applicants, permits were granted under the Order for the use of specified quantities of creamery butter for manufacture of fruit cake, confectionery, short-bread, etc.
The fee, which was fixed at a rate per cwt. of butter covered by the permit, was determined by the Minister for Finance under the Supplies and Services (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1946, and represented the cost to the State of cold storage of the butter together with the amount of the subsidy payable on the production and sale of the butter by creameries. As it may in the future be found necessary to re-introduce the system of issue of permits authorising the use of creamery butter for manufacturing purposes and to arrange for the collection of permit fees, it is proposed in the Bill to make permanent provision for the making of the necessary restriction Order whenever the need for such an Order would arise.
Finally, I would like to refer to one other minor provision of the Bill. The opportunity presented by this measure is being taken to make a slight amendment of the Act of 1941 to enable levies to be imposed on stocks of imported butter held by creameries. The Act already provides for similar levies on butter of all kinds held by butter traders and on stocks of creamery butter held by creameries but it omits to cover imported butter held by creameries.
Apart from the pontificating rôle that the Minister assumed before he started the explanation of the contents of this Bill, the purpose for which the Bill was introduced cannot be objected to. It was very difficult to understand from its terms the purpose of the Bill but we now understand from the Minister's statement that it is to give the force of permanent legislation to Emergency Powers Orders which were already in operation with regard to butter production and the dairying industry.
I am sorry that the Minister did not, as was done in the case of other Bills of this nature, give us a Schedule with the Bill, of the various Emergency Powers Orders that are being incorporated in it. As far as I remember, that was done in the case of other legislation. Anyone who tried to trace the various Emergency Powers Order issued from the time such Orders were first introduced up to the present day would be looking for a needle in bundle of straw. It is a pity that the Minister or his Department did no think of incorporating a Schedule that would give in handy form the name and numbers of the various Emergency Powers Orders that are the subject of this piece of legislation.
May I interrupt the Deputy to say that the reason there is no Schedule is that we are not repealing any Order; we are allowing the Orders to lapse.
We should have had a list supplied to us on a stencilled sheet or something like that, such as the Minister for Industry and Commerce supplies when he is introducing legislation giving permanent effect to quota Orders. He circulates sometimes a stencilled leaflet giving particulars of the Orders and the purposes which they served. That would have been very valuable and helpful to Deputies who are interested in this matter and who are anxious to scrutinise the measure.
Generally speaking, the terms of the Bill are unobjectionable and they are a tribute to the legislation that was enacted from time to time since Fianna Fáil took office in 1932, in the interests of the dairying industry — the Dairy Produce (Price Stabilisation) Act and the various Emergency Powers Orders made since the passage of the amending Act of 1941 to cover various problems that arose from time to time in regard to the dairying industry and its products.
I notice the Minister mentioned something about the recent increasing value of butter. I presume he was referring to the increasing value of butter in external markets. If that is the position, it is to be welcomed, if there is any sale of butter in external markets. I notice from figures published yesterday that the sale seems to have gone down very much recently. That is not a welcome piece of news. The position in regard to this industry is, of course, very important for the future of our whole agricultural activities. The uncertainty that obtains at the moment in regard to dairying is regrettable.
I suppose it would be in order on this Bill to refer briefly to some of the requirements of the dairying industry. We have had particular evidence of the position in recent times because of the agitation that has grown up amongst dairy farmers, sponsored by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association, because of the delay that there has been in issuing the report of the Costings Commission. The Minister, of course, has not mentioned this at all in his opening statement. He has merely explained to us the various provisions incorporated in this measure. It is bad news for the dairying industry that there has been so much delay about the solution of this problem of costings. I know of course that the Minister has given expression to the view here that this thing is all "cod". Nevertheless, the dairy farmers do not think it is. The Minister should do everything in his power to accede to their oft-repeated request to have the report expedited, whatever the Minister thinks about it personally. He has told us already that he believes that it is all "cod" and that it will not confer any benefit at all, but the dairy farmers want it and it is only right that that important section of the farming community should know where they stand.
The Bill, which is putting in the form of permanent legislation all these various Emergency Powers Orders that were brought into operation from time to time as necessity dictated, is welcome and there will not be on the part of this Party any objection to the terms of the measure generally. Perhaps, on further examination and with the explanation the Minister has given us now, there may be points here and there when the Committee Stage comes that we may have to elucidate more thoroughly than we have been able to do up to now in the discussion on the Second Stage of the Bill.
This Bill arises, I suppose, because of the necessity to amend emergency powers legislation passed since the end of the emergency. I wonder if the Minister would advert when replying to the fact that all this stabilisation-of-butter legislation applies to the home market, now that we have little or no export market. The question might well be asked whether it is all necessary seeing that we are only supplying the home market with a home product? What is the cost of regimenting the whole dairying industry for the home market? I suppose the Minister may have views of his own on that but could we not have more simple legislation in the future unless the Minister can hold out some hope that we will again enter the foreign markets with our butter.
When the original Act was brought in, it was because of the fact that we had a problem on account of the price that was available in foreign markets at that time. It represented an effort to get for the producers of butter at that time a fair price, or a price at which they could continue in economic production. All the legislation since has sprung from that effort. Whether it will be necessary, seeing that there is no prospect of getting an economic price for our produce in any foreign market, to carry out the same strict regulations about the production of creamery butter in future is something on which the dairy farmers would welcome a statement by the Minister. I am just raising those hares to get the views of the Minister.
As Deputy Ó Briain pointed out, the Government and the Minister should take an early opportunity of telling the dairy farmers what Government policy is to be in the future in the matter of prices for milk and butter. The price of milk is not fixed but the price of butter is, and it determines the price the farmers get for the milk——
Partly; there are additional considerations, you know, of commodities like crumb and other commodities which often earn a surplus.
Yes, there are these, if we can get a market for chocolate crumb, but the Minister let the chocolate crumb slip through his fingers rather softly. I mean, the general opinion now is that he could have done something by way of subventions of one kind or another to help to maintain the chocolate crumb industry. Possibly Comhlucht Siúcra Éireann or somebody else could have helped it because this was a very valuable industry for the country and one which we should not have lost without more of an effort being made on the part of the Government to retain it. It was a valuable export and a big help to our balance of payments and it was a means of getting rid of some of our milk products at economic prices. Seemingly it was not possible to get an economic market for any of them except through chocolate crumb, sweetened cream or something like that.
I think the Minister or the Government should tell dairy farmers what Government policy for some time to come will be in regard to the price of milk. That is absolutely necessary so that they can settle down to produce milk at the best price that can be found for them. I think that the price stabilisation and marketing of butter and all that to which the Minister was very strongly opposed in the early years—there is no doubt but that he was strenuously opposed to them—are accepted now. He now believes that was a good piece of machinery because he has not found any other ways or means of providing a better form of help for the dairying industry.
I do not know whether it would be in order to talk about farmers' butter. I do not suppose it would be, because the Minister might blow up and not retain his present amiable mood if I raised the question. The fact that this creamery butter is being subsidised— if you like—to the consumer, is a further disadvantage to the farmers' butter but I suppose that is outside the scope of this Bill. We have far-reaching legislation and all types of machinery to deal with creamery butter. I suppose that is necessary in order to produce a uniform article capable of being sold in most countries. That was not bad enough; we found it necessary to get our own people to eat the butter and we had to subsidise it. It does not speak well for it in some ways if we have to continue to subsidise it. Either we are too poor to eat our own butter, when one section of the community has produced it, or there is something else wrong. I do not know what it may be. But in normal times, we have almost doubled our consumption of butter here since before the war. Does the Minister see any hope in the future of sufficient butter being produced to enable it to be exported again? I would like to hear the Minister on that. It may be outside the scope of the Bill but all these are important matters. The ordinary farmers want to know clearly what the future holds for them as regards the dairying industry.
I had not the advantage of hearing the Minister's introductory speech but I had an opportunity of having a glance at this Bill and I must say it surprised me that the Minister, with his past record and in view of the statements which he has put on the record, was introducing a measure of this kind to provide for these powers in permanent form as part of the ordinary law of the land. Undoubtedly in times of emergency the Minister for Agriculture should have powers to see that a crisis in the butter situation is handled, but does the Minister envisage a permanent shortage of butter here to meet the home demand? He is taking powers here to regulate imported butter, to direct its sale, to impose levies upon it, and he has taken powers to see that no one except somebody authorised by him can handle or distribute it. We know, of course, that the home production of butter has dropped considerably within the last year or two.
The home production of butter?
The home production of butter has dropped.
Shut up. It has gone up steadily.
The export of butter has come to the point now where we have to import it again.
I do not think that is likely.
The figures published in London yesterday, and reported in to-day's Irish Independent, show that the export of butter from this country has dropped in these last couple of months very considerably as against last year. The Minister is taking, in this Bill, powers to control imported butter. He is not doing that just for fun. He must envisage a situation in which we will not be producing sufficient butter to meet the home demand. Of course the butter we are exporting is pretty heavily subsidised from the Exchequer. At one time the Minister was very much against the idea of giving cheap butter to John Bull at the expense of the Irish consumer, but not only is he subsidising export butter out of the Exchequer but he is going to subsidise bacon. It is a big change, seeing that the Minister and those associated with him denounced any idea of giving a stabilised price to farmers for butter and seeing that the price they would get on the home market was not governed by a disastrously low price on the world market.
Section 4 is interesting from the point of view that it is introduced by the Minister for Agriculture who was formerly known as Deputy James Dillon who was against all sorts of inspectors and controls and wanted freedom for everybody to do everything they liked with butter and everything else. Section 4 provides that the proprietor of a catering establishment or the head of an institution in the area outlined shall not purchase any butter to which this section applies unless he purchases it from an authorised body or a person who obtained it from an authorised body. It is an offence punishable by law if he purchases butter which he cannot prove he bought from an authorised person.
That is putting the onus on the purchaser. Unless he can prove to the satisfaction of the Minister's inspectors in the first place, and of the court, if he is charged, that he bought it from an authorised person, he is guilty of a punishable offence. Surely, in permanent legislation, the Minister should be content to put the onus on the seller, to prove that a man who sold butter was an authorised person rather than put the onus on the purchaser. It would be easier to control it than to require the purchaser to prove from whom he bought the butter. The Bill seems to provide interference with the ordinary individual. We know that in times of emergency it is right to take exceptional measures to safeguard the supplies of an essential commodity, but otherwise in times which we hope will be normal I think it is going a bit too far to put this onus on the purchaser. I am certainly surprised at the Minister for Agriculture, who fulminated so much against governmental powers and Government interference.
To be quite honest, I do not know what the Deputy is talking about. If he had come in here when I was introducing the Bill, he would know this relates to the Dublin and Bray marketing of butter. There is no obligation on the purchaser to prove anything. The State must prove the offence. There is no such thing as putting the onus on the defendant.
It does not matter what interpretation is put on the section in the Dáil. If carried, the ordinary meaning of the language used will be interpreted by the courts.
If it operates in such a way as to put a burden of proof on the person who is alleged to have committed the offence, I will ask the Dáil to amend the Bill.
The Minister should consider the matter now. Section 4 says:—
"The Minister may by regulations, made in respect of a specified area, provide—"
and in sub-section (b) goes on:—
"—that the proprietor of a catering establishment in that area or the head of an institution in that area shall not purchase any butter to which this section applies unless he purchases it from an authorised body or from a person who obtained it from an authorised body."
Surely anybody who commits an offence against this Act has the onus of proof put on him. Anyway, how is the proprietor of a school to know that the person from whom he purchases butter is an authorised body?
The authorised body is defined.
Or how is he to know that the person from whom he bought the butter, on behalf of the staff and children of his institution, is a person who bought the butter from an authorised body? It is putting an onus on the purchaser to find out from whom the butter originally came. He must find out if the person in the local village from whom he bought the butter was an authorised person or if he, in turn, had bought it from an authorised body. He has got to go into the shop.
That has been in operation for the past 14 years and there has been no difficulty.
In times of emergency, extraordinary measures may be necessary. We hope we are going into normal times, at least normal in relation to the distribution of butter and things of that kind. Before the Dáil passes permanent legislation making the head of a school responsible for seeing that the local grocer has bought his butter from a person authorised by the Minister, the Minister should reconsider the matter. I think the present proposal is going a bit too far and I think the onus should be on the seller who must not, if the Minister so directs, handle butter unless he is authorised to do so. I think that is going quite far enough to meet the present situation. If there were a famine in the country we might agree that the Minister should go a step further.
In Section 5 it is stated:—
"(1) The Minister may by regulations provide that a person shall not buy, sell or use butter to which this section applies for any purpose other than ordinary household use or a use authorised by a permit granted by the Minister."
This section applies to creamery butter and that sub-section goes very far indeed. It provides that an ordinary individual commits an offence if he buys creamery butter and does not use it for household purposes, according to the reading of that sub-section.
The Deputy was not in the House when I was explaining all this.
Let me remind the Minister again that it is not the Minister's explanation which will be the law. It is what is in the Act of Parliament. I am merely pointing out these defects to the Minister so that the Bill can be reconsidered. He can have a fresh look at it to find out whether in fact the provisions are really necessary in what we hope will be normal times.
Sub-section (3) of Section 5 states:—
"There shall be charged, levied and paid on the grant of a permit under regulations under this section such (if any) fee as the Minister for Finance shall from time to time direct."
That is a very wide power. In very recent times, indeed, we have had the Minister for Finance imposing very big fees and levies on the importation of certain commodities. If, at any time in the future, he finds himself short of cash he may put a very big fee upon the grant of a permit. Remember, it is the Minister for Finance who will decide and not the Minister for Agriculture: "such (if any) fee as the Minister for Finance shall from time to time direct."
Now under the 1935 Act the Minister for Agriculture came into the picture in relation to the fee. I think the fee was definitely laid down. There was a 5/- fee for one type of permit and £1 for another type under the provisions of that Act. Before the Dáil passes this Bill I think it should provide that a fixed scale of fees be laid down. If, later, they are found not to be high enough and the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Agriculture makes the case that they are not high enough, then the Dáil can amend the existing legislation.
We have had the recent experience of people engaged in the normal business of distributing articles which they were importing, having had the assurance of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government and the assurances of some Ministers that everything in the garden was rosy, suddenly finding themselves faced with a levy of 35 per cent. on the commodities they sell, overnight, out of the blue, and without any warning. A Minister for Finance who is prepared to do that in certain circumstances might certainly drive up the fee under this, not by 35 per cent., but by 350 per cent. Before the Dáil passes this measure I think it should have some idea of the magnitude of the fees that are to be charged, at the sole discretion of the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Agriculture not coming into the picture at all.
The Minister should consider introducing an amendment on the Committee Stage to fix a scale of fees which will be reasonable in relation to these operations. I think he can get that done quite easily. If provision is to be made for a permanent fee, I think the Minister for Agriculture should come in on it. Sub-section (4) lays it down:—
"All fees charged and levied by virtue of this section shall be collected and taken in such manner as the Minister for Finance shall from time to time direct and shall be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer in accordance with the directions of that Minister."
Now that is something new in normal times. There was no such provision in the 1935 Act as far as I can discover. That Act was designed for the regulation of butter prices in the interests of the farmers and milk producers. This present provision would appear to be a way in which the Minister for Finance, if he is short of cash, can collect a lot of fees, or direct the Minister for Agriculture to collect a lot of fees for him, and use them, not for the benefit of the farmers producing the butter, but for the benefit of the Exchequer. The Minister for Agriculture has no right even to object. They will be paid into and disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer in accordance with the directions of the Minister for Finance. Instead of giving all this freedom, that the Minister for Agriculture was so anxious about over the years, no one in future will be allowed to buy or sell even a butter box unless he is permitted to do so under regulation made by the Minister.
Section 6 gives the Minister power to regulate the sale of empty butter boxes. It provides that empty butter boxes of a specified description should not be sold save at specified prices and to specified persons. It also provides that the expression butter box means a box in which butter has been sold.
It somewhat amazes me that the Minister for Agriculture would have the face, in view of his past, to come in here and say that we cannot buy or sell butter boxes without his permission. If the Minister is taking power to do this in normal peace times, I should like to know what he would do if there was a real emergency. He denounced all "pipsqueaks" of inspectors. The farmer was to be able to tell every inspector to stay outside the gate. Now the inspector cannot only go inside the gate to see if the farmer has bought or sold butter, but he can go inside the farmer's house and see if he has a butter box there and see if he is using butter for any other purpose than to feed himself and his family.
The Minister for Agriculture, formerly Deputy Dillon, would not let pip-squeaks of inspectors look across the farmers' fields but he is now sending them into the farmers' kitchens to see if he has a butter box beside the fire. The section providing for penalties is not left out. Section 10 provides that a person who contravenes a provision of the regulations under this Act, or a condition attached to a permit, shall be guilty of an offence under the section and liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £20. An offence under this section may be prosecuted by or at the suit of the Minister. The Minister may act as prosecutor. I would love to see the Minister acting as a prosecutor in a court where a person was charged with the offence of having bought butter and used it for some other purpose than eating it, such as a person cleaning his hands if he got tar on them. The Minister could either appear before the court himself or hire some lawyer and give him a big fee to go into the court and prosecute for him.
I would like the Minister, between now and the Committee Stage, to consider whether many of these provisions are really necessary in permanent legislation dealing with normal times. The Minister might himself agree that some of these things are going a little bit beyond what is reasonable and necessary in these days. I think it is wrong to put the onus on the purchaser. I think it would be sufficient to put the onus on the buyer. For the purpose of directing this particular business, it would be better to put the onus on the people who are really responsible, and that is, on the sellers. If the Minister holds the seller responsible all down the line, it is not necessary also to take powers to deal with the purchaser, particularly when you come down to the point where the purchaser is an ordinary private individual or the head of a small institution.
The people who cannot buy butter unless they buy it from an accredited person includes somebody managing a restaurant, a hotel, a boarding-house, a quest house, a café, a tea-room, a canteen or a club. That class of person also includes the manager of a hospital, sanatorium, a convalescent home, a convent or a college or other ordinary institutions. I think it is wrong to have that provision written into an Act of Parliament, whether or not the Minister intends to use it. It is wrong that people of that type should be held responsible, if they purchased from the local grocer a few pounds of butter and use it in their small institution. What the Minister really wants to make sure of is that there will be no wholesale dealing in butter if it is controlled, or subject to a levy or rationed, or anything of that kind.
I think that some of the provisions in Section 5 are unnecessary and that the Minister should tell the Dáil what the levies on persons who get permits under this Bill are likely to be. It should not be left to the discretion of the Minister for Finance to fix these levies without reference to, and the concurrence of, the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Finance has powers to use these funds for the benefit of the Exchequer in accordance with his own directions. If there are levies to be made the Dáil should know, in the interests of the dairy farmers of the country, what they are to be, and if they are to be changed the Dáil should approve.
The ordinary courtesy of debate in this House, as I learned it for the last 20 years, is that a Deputy who has an interest in the matter before the House should take the trouble to come in and hear what the Minister has to say. If the Minister has not properly explained the matter to the Deputy, that Deputy has the right to rebuke the Minister for lack of courtesy to the House and to require him to defend himself on such a charge. I think that I did try to explain this Bill fully. When Deputy Aiken spoke on this Bill, few of the people listening to him would believe that all the Orders to which he referred were Orders made by the Government of which he was a member.
Debate adjourned.